MacBook Pro Retina Display Teardown
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MacBook Pro Retina Display Teardown
Author: Walter Galan
Tools used in this guide
• Phillips #00 Screwdriver (1)
• iFixit 6 Inch Metal Ruler (1)
• iSesamo Opening Tool (1)
In case you missed it, we tore apart the new MacBook Pro 15" Retina Display Mid 2012 last week. Inside, we found a whole
mess of pretty, yet difficult to access components. In fact, the MacBook Pro with Retina display earned our lowest
repairability score ever, with 1 out of 10 points.
What we didn't look at earlier, however, is the MacBook Pro's namesake: the Retina display. Apple claims that the Retina
display in the MacBook Pro is the most stunning display to ever grace the lid of a notebook computer. "But at what cost?'
we find ourselves asking. Being the repair-minded folks that we are, we feel that the only fair way to answer that question is
to give this new display "the iFixit treatment": open it up and look! We may not be opthalmologists, but we are excited to be
doing surgery on a Retina display. Join us as we investigate the intricacies of Apple's most stunning display.
Do you wake up in the middle of the night, tossing and turning in anticipation for iFixit's next teardown? Follow us on Twitter
and get some rest. We'll keep you up to date with all the hottest gadget teardowns!
Step 1 — MacBook Pro Retina Display
Teardown
• Here it is: the impenetrable fortress of pixels known
as the Retina display.
• Despite our initial apprehension about tearing down
such an impressive (and expensive) piece of
equipment, we are very curious to see for ourselves
just how Apple managed to squeeze more than an
entire HDTV inside a 15" display.
• At first glance, it looks like a normal MacBook Pro
display assembly with a skinnier bezel and no logo
at the bottom.
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MacBook Pro Retina Display Teardown
Step 2
Would you call us crazy if we told you that the
display assembly from the latest MacBook Pro is the
same size as its predecessor?
• You caught us; we lied. The new display is
actually a fraction of a millimeter smaller than the
old one. Neat!
At its fattest point, the display assembly is a hair
over 7 mm thick, and all the way down to just over 3
mm at the edges.
What's astounding is that Apple's engineers
managed to cram four times the pixels of the
previous 15" MacBook Pro into a display assembly
that is (nearly) the same size.
The big savings here is weight, not thickness. The
Retina display weighs in at 673 grams, while a
standard 15" MacBook Pro display tips the scale at
908 grams. That's a solid 25% weight savings!
The disassembly begins pretty routinely. Like most
Apple laptops, the clutch cover pries off fairly easily
with a plastic opening tool .
But differences start popping up as soon as the
clutch cover comes off. The array of antennas
underneath the clutch cover looks a lot more
involved than in previous generations.
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MacBook Pro Retina Display Teardown
Wg^^- Step 4
The left display hinge comes out with no issues, but
good luck separating it from the display data cable.
Devices with cables fed through hinges can be a real
bear to work on. None of that will be an issue with
this machine, though, as the display hinge is pretty
much sealed shut at the factory. Rather than routing
the cable under a cable retainer -- as it's done in non-
Retina MacBook Pros -- you just have to replace
both cable and hinge together.
Don't think that the guys (and gals) who designed
this machine are just out to get you. Routing the
cables through the hinge is a way to save space and
weight in the laptop.
Step 5
In the opposite corner we find another hinge that
holds the antenna and FaceTime cables captive.
Again, if you need to replace these cables, the hinge
has got to go, as well. That might not be so bad, but
having to replace all of those cables just because a
hinge breaks would be less than ideal.
Markings on the inverter board read LP154WT1 (SJ)
(A1) GD. Given that the board is soldered to the rest
of the display, it appears to be a display
manufactured by LG Philips.
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MacBook Pro Retina Display Teardown
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Step 6
Things go back to being a little more familiar as we
begin pulling off the rubber display gasket.
We were pleasantly surprised to find Phillips screws
holding the Retina display in place. If you are trying
to repair your Retina display and made it this far, you
have earned the right to lay down your pentalobe and
Torx bits and dust off your Phillips drivers.
The 1 mm gap between the aluminum panel and LCD
layers might not seem very large, but to dust and
debris it's a gaping hole.
Q: What happens when you hand over a
groundbreaking notebook display to a group of
careful, highly trained technicians?
A: They break it.
We were as careful as we could possibly be, but the
glass on the Retina display is just too fragile.
So, how badly did we break it? Well, upon closer
inspection we noticed two very distinct lines running
around the perimeter of the display, the inner of
which was filled with tiny bubbles.
• Could those be the LCs of our LCD?
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MacBook Pro Retina Display Teardown
Step 8
Once we got over the fact that obliterating the front
panel of the display was the only way to get it out,
we grabbed the skinniest tool we could find — an iFixit
6" ruler — and started prying.
With the top and sides of the display panel freed, we
were able to slide the shattered remains out of the
display assembly.
There were two thin strips of adhesive underneath
the glass holding it in place, with a pattern that
closely matched our trail of bubbles.
So, what's the lesson here? If you want a world-class
laptop screen that doesn't take up much real estate,
don't expect to be able to pop it out and back in at
will.
Step 9
Unfortunately, the Retina display is not nearly as
impressive when it's been beaten and broken, but it
is still impressively thin.
The glued layers are about 1.5 mm thick, and that
includes the metal mounting plates.
We need to clarify this before continuing
with the teardown; Apple did not design and
build a 1.5 mm thin LCD panel. They did,
however, do something exceptional with the design
of this display: rather than sandwich an LCD panel
between a back case and a front glass, they used
the aluminum case itself as the frame for the LCD
panel and used the LCD as the front glass.
• TL;DR: The entire display assembly is an LCD
panel.
A
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MacBook Pro Retina Display Teardown
Step 10
• At last! With the LCD removed, we can remove the
antenna and FaceTime cables from the display
assembly.
• The camera cable is routed along the outside edge of
the display assembly, making replacement very
difficult and costly. Thankfully the cameras fail very
infrequently, if at all.
• If the FaceTime camera were placed at the bottom of
the display, it would likely be much easier to replace,
but we wonder what kind of awkward side effects
that would cause.
• Disclaimer: iFixit does not believe that
the FaceTime camera should be placed
at the bottom of the display assembly.
That is a silly idea.
A
iSight, uSight, we all sigh at lame jokes. Anyway,
iSight is a thing of the past. This MacBook Pro has a
FaceTime camera, allowing you to video chat with
your grandmother in full HD.
The camera board comes out easily enough,
considering the work it took to get there.
The camera interfaces with the rest of the computer
via the Vimicro VC0358 USB camera interface IC.
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MacBook Pro Retina Display Teardown
A
Step 12
• Underneath the top layer of the LCD, we find a series
of films and sheets that manipulate light before
sending it to the user's eye.
• Warning, the explanation we're about to give
is painfully abridged. If you want an easy-
to-understand take on how LCDs work,
check out "Bill The Engineer Guy's" teardown of an
LCD monitor .
• Diffuser and prism films evenly spread the light to
create an even backlight for the display panel. A
stationary polarizing sheet then works in conjunction
with the liquid crystals to block or allow light for each
pixel, all 5+ million of them.
Step 13
• The light guide plate is held down by a small strip of
mild adhesive — nothing like we saw before.
• Erring on the side of caution, we proceded very
slowly with our modified iSesamo opening tool and
removed the plate.
• Backlight bounces through the plate due to total
internal reflection until it hits one of those tiny dots,
which sends the light up and out of the front of the
plate.
• By the way, the third picture is an image of the grid
found in the clear plastic plate being removed in the
second picture. We had to coerce it a bit in
Photoshop in order to make it show its grid.
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MacBook Pro Retina Display Teardown
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Step 14
• The plain-looking sheet of white paper serves as a
uniform white background for the LCD's backlight.
• What else would you use to light an LED-backlit
display? LEDs, of course!
• A strip of 48 LEDs at the bottom of the display
assembly provides all the light your Retina display
needs.
Step 15
• There's no real reason to pull the foam off the inside
of the back case, but this is a teardown, so we're
doing it.
• We suspect that the foam is there to provide a
flat, even surface for the LCD glass to brace
against. But there is one thing that we do know
about it: it is super sticky.
• The bottom edge of the case has two features that
we found pretty neat: a laser engraved data matrix
code and a nifty arrangement of round indentations.
• Upon further inspection and with the help of some
keen-eyed readers, it appears that those dots form
the pattern of a glider from Conway's Game of Life,
the universal symbol for hackers.
• That sixth dot to the right, though? Apparently, if
you were to place that dot while playing, it would
place the entire game in a state of death. Is
Apple trying to send us a message?
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MacBook Pro Retina Display Teardown
Step 16
• And there you have it, the Retina display from the
new MacBook Pro.
• Normally we would provide you with a repairability
score at this point, but since this display is part of
another device , that's not really appropriate.
• What we can tell you is that if anything in the display
assembly breaks, you'll need to replace the whole
thing. It will be more expensive than just replacing
the LCD inside a regular MacBook Pro, but it will
also make the choice (of whether to replace just LCD
or entire display assembly) very easy.
To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
This document was last generated on Aug 1 , 201 2.
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